Bobby Gilbert Adventures

We arrived in Slovenia early afternoon of the 21st June at Kranjskz Gora and immediately got our bikes out for a ride up white roads to a point on the hilltop ridge which was a border for three countries. You could simultaneously have one leg in Slovenian, one in Austrian and one in Italy. If you had at least 3 legs.

The following day we did another great ride on the white roads that gave great views of the mountains in the Triglav national park, above our campsite. The descent from this second ride was described in the guide book as sporty. If you had a full-sus mountain bike, no doubt, but on gravel bikes it was a steep, terrifying, bolder descent. I raced ahead to release our van from the campsite before we got charged for another night. Sally was not far behind despite having chosen to be less bold with the bolders.

The next day we climbed Prisank which I’ve covered in a separate post.

Then June 24th, 5am start for Bobby to get a 50 mile ride through Slovenia and Italy. There were 26 hairpins up the first climb and 24 cobbled ones on the descent which took me to a cycle path along a beautiful old railway line into Italy. The last climb was over a col back into Slovenia. Halfway up I realised I didn’t have a passport with me. Fortunately, the joy of Shengen is that you don’t need one. Just as well as it was back in Slovenia in the van. The early start meant I was back in time to join Sally by 10am before the heat of the day. She had already had her first freezing cold dip in the river.

We next went to climb Triglav (covered in a separate post) but after this, on the 29th June, I went for another 50 mile loop which took me around the back of it to give views of it from the other side. The picture below shows the ridge we climbed, from right to left, to get to the summit. We approached it from the other side.

On the last of the big climbs I was told, at the summit that the road ahead was closed and I had to go back down and do a 30 mile detour because of a car race. Really?! I managed to talk my way past this first checkpoint then pedaled flat out for the next 10 miles to get through before the race started and avoid being stopped by the marshals along the way. Lots of smiling and waving while going past at speed. On the hairpinned descent at the end of this section (zigzags middle left in the map below) I was racing to stay ahead of the lead car which was clearing the road. Such fun!

We then moved on to the beautiful Soča valley where life was nearly all about the river (post here), but managed some more bike rides together. The big zig zags at the bottom of the map below are the 10 mile climb at the start of the ride. The “sporty” descent was again, taxing.

We also did this nice loop in the hills above Kobarid to Drežnica. I think that in the first world war the Austrians were bombarding the Slovenians and Italians across the river here (from my reading of “A Farewell to Arms”). Strange to imagine in such a beautiful place. Coming back along the river we got told off by a policeman for going the wrong way along a one-way road (as most of the locals appeared to do). He shrugged and said not to crash.